When the Sky Falls
by lewilder
Summary: The time of year when rain comes to the Fire Nation is the only time Katara feels at home. Zutara. Oneshot.


**Disclaimer: ATLA and all related notions belong to Bryke, Nickelodeon, et al.**

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It's the time of year when the rain comes.

It's not enough to call it a rainy _season_, because it doesn't last that long—a few weeks, maybe, at most. But the rain comes, staggering from the sea with heavy footfalls, sliding over roofs in relentless torrents, reminding the Fire Nation that the elements are temperamental no matter how great a people's mastery of one of them.

With the heat of summer beginning to dissipate, the time that precedes the rain is curiously empty, a time of bright sunlit days without the oppression of summer's brazen sun yet also without the amber overtones of autumn, winter's herald. Out of the void comes the sky-splitting lightning, an overture of peace to the soon-to-be-offended nation before the downpour begins.

Most of the Fire Nation citizens spend the rainy weeks indoors, scuttling from shelter to shelter like sand crabs, shunning the droplets that pound without mercy and cursing the incessant humidity that curls into every crevice and cranny so that, even inside, the dampness is inescapable.

Only the Fire Lord's wife welcomes the rain.

When the rain comes, Zuko parrots words he remembers hearing from his mother long ago, before things fell apart, telling Katara she'll catch her death of cold if she stands outside in the pouring rain. The first few times, the first few days of the first year they're married when the rain comes, she comes inside for a few hours before he finds her standing outside again, in a side courtyard, eyes closed and arms hanging limply at her side, soaking in her element.

The second year, he still repeats the warning from time to time, but she no longer makes a pretense of listening to him. For all that they work well together in most areas of their life, that they have a sense of mutual respect, she defies him in this and he doesn't contest her defiance. His protestations for her health are unfounded; she never gets sick from the rain, only sorrowful. He protests more for his own conscience than for her wellbeing: after all, he's the reason she abandoned her elemental home to come to a land whose opposition to her being sucks at her soul.

If he offers her advice, he can pretend that her health is his only concern, that they are a normal couple whose differences are no more than trifles.

A cross-cultural marriage is not _normal_, not these days, and usually Katara laughs off the difficulties, smiles and kisses him, and faces their opposition with either practiced indifference or practiced debate. But when the rain comes, she retreats into herself and allows herself to mourn the fact that the depth of her love for her husband renders her permanently displaced.

It was a decision she thought out carefully before she agreed to marry him and he knows this, sees and admires how she blooms in her transplanted life most other weeks of the year, but when the rain comes, he sees her soak herself in her element until her hair and clothes are sodden beyond comprehension and he wonders, then, as he stands and watches her, if she regrets her decision to be his wife.

He asks her once and she swears that she doesn't regret anything, promises that she loves him more than her homeland, kisses him senseless and distracts him, and he accepts her response, but he also knows that she'll do whatever it takes to make the people she loves happy.

There is no easy answer, no true compromise he can offer her: they love each other, they promised themselves to each other, and he can't leave his country. Knowing this, Katara once more puts the fate of the world (because the Fire Nation needs a strong ruler, needs to recover from war, needs to find its own new life of peace) before her own happiness. But even if he _could_ leave, could steal away with her to the country of her nativity for the rest of their lives, then _he_ would be the displaced one, a flame forever stifled by ice and snow. There are no countries he knows of where fire and ice both naturally abound.

One night, when thunder rumbles around the city, shaking windows and walls with its cacophonous echoes, when lightning sears the sky in otherworldly light, Katara looks up from the downpour in the courtyard and sees Zuko watching her like he always does whenever he gets the chance. He feels safer if he's near her during this time, less like she'll be caught up in the pounding droplets and disappear from his side.

Her eyes soften, though he can't see that through the pouring rain, but he does see her stretch her hand out toward him. He walks into the storm to be with her, relaxes when her hand clasps his tightly (despite his aversion to lightning), and allows the foreign power of his wife's element to bite into his skin with a million painful prickles as they wait out the storm together.

That night, when they're getting ready for bed, Katara says, "Thank you," and he thinks she's talking about how he kept her company in the rain, but her eyes are trained on the scar on his chest, so he's not sure if she's thanking him for recent company, for old shared victories, or for all the seconds minutes hours they've spent trying to create a new mutual identity in between.

So he mumbles, "You're welcome," in response and wraps her in a hug.

They don't speak of it again and the rain ends a few days later.

As the years pass and the rain continues to soak the Fire Nation annually, Katara invites Zuko to join her in the rain more and more often. He does, and somehow, even though he can't fathom why, those seconds minutes hours he spends with her, holding her hand and allowing her element to surround them in his country, atone for the days weeks years she spends away from her own land.

Their love has fated them to be forever displaced, never both resting in the welcome familiarity of a shared homeland and customs, but each time the rain comes, it washes away the harshness of their differences a little bit more, proving all the more sharply what Zuko suspects during the rest of the year—that those who would love deeply, even if they grew up next door to each other, will never be truly at peace except in each other's hearts, for nowhere else will they find true understanding and welcome.

And Zuko begins to be thankful for the rain.


End file.
